FROM SAND TO STEEL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 206, 29 August 1905, Page 2

FROM SAND TO STEEL.

TRIAL OF THE GALBRAITH PROCESS. | A NEW ZEALAND INVENTION. (From Our Special Correspondent.) ! LONDON, July 2L I I have attended sundry "demonstrations" of how to reduce th_- elusive ironsand of Taraaaki to the "pig" of commerce, and also several exhibitions of how to "brick" tlie sand in order to render it amenable to blast furnace treatment. Usuaiiy these trials have taken piace in out-of-the-way ■ and sometimes rather malodorous quarters of Loudon— p.aces that took you an hour to come at and which you left without reI grets. I had a much moie pleasant experience last V» ednesdiay, when, at the invita- | tion of Messrs Galbi-aith, steuart and Robj ins, 1 journeyed down to Longhboro', in Leicestershire, to witness the production of steel direct from the ironsand by means of business of an urgent nature to chain mc to London till noon, I not accompany the large party which left St. Pancras lor Loughboro' at 10 a.m., but had to travel down iv solitude a couple of hours later, thereby missing a considerable flow of postprandial oratory, in which Mr Witnetord, IM.ii.R., Mr Steuart, Mr Rons Marten and , the general manager of the Brush E.ectri- ; cal Company (at whose works the demonstration took place) drew rosy verbal pictures of the enormous advantages which New Zealand in particular wouid reap from the establishment of an iron and steel industry in tne colony by means of tile Galbraith process. The party who enjoyed the Sow aforementioned included several New Zealanders in addition to those already named, Including Dr. Maitland, Mr WLsemau. Mr G. S. Thome George, Dr. Ait-ken, and old Auckland identity in the person of Mr F. C. i Richardson and Mr Kenrick. There were I a.so present many representatives of iron and steel and electrical interests inewspaper and otherwise), several learn-d pro-I fessors of metallurgy, and the usual com- i plement of the merely curious. j As most New Zealanders are well aware, the commercial production of pig iron from Taraaaki ironsand has been the object ol many men in times past, but hitherto the experiments—many of them successful enough on a "drawing-room scale" —have failed to result in either fame or fortune for the inventors or their backers. Messrs Ga.braith have gone a step further than any of their predecessors in one direction •at least. Their aim has not been the modest one of producing "pig." They have gone for the direct production of steel, practically without the assistance of flux and entirely without fuel. The method adopted is delightfully simple. Yon simply mix the ironsand with a certain undisclosed but definitely determined proportion of carbon, charcoal or coke, in powder, and feed the mixture at a certain speed from a feed-box superimposed on the furnace, whence It travels downward by gravitation upon a series of •'incandescent^"—graphitic bars foru.L.g resistances In the electric circuit. By the time the sand has encountered the last of these bars it has been reduced to a molten state, in which it leaves the furnace, and descends in a brilliant shower into a receiver. I in the experimental plant erected at the Brush Co.'s works the furnace was open to inspection back and front, aad no appaient j provision was made for conserving the heat or to keep the metal in a fluid condition. These details would have to be provided for in a commercial plant, which wonld have to be equipped with a suitably heated receiver, so that the metal could be tapped off at intervals and be further dealt with, i.e.. decarbidisecL Bessemerised, or otherwise treated. Moreover, no provision has been made in the experimental plant for heating the iron sand along with the carbon and feeding the furnace with t;he compound hot. The iron sand used on Wednesday had been previously heated with powdered coke , dt St in crucibles, but it was led in the fur- | nace cold. These shortcomings In the ex- j perimental plants mi?ht have militated, of course, against the success of the demon- I stration, which was really only on a "draw-iufr-room" scale. The furnace itself was , only some six or seven feet high by perhaps 18 inches square, and its capacity for reducing iron sand to "homogeneous metal" did not exceed 16 or 18 ounces per minute. Another factor not favourable to the production of steel of the highest class was the presence of phosphorus in the saud used. No provision was made by Messrs Galbraitli for this element, for the New Plymouth iron sand has always been considered practically free from phosphorus, and Its presence in the samples used at the demonstration was not detected until the eleventh hour. However, in spite of all drawbacks, the experimental Galbraith furnace did all that I its sponsors claimed that it would do. Aft°r j running a couple of hours—during which period the guests made excursions to various parts of the extensive and Interestlne ; works of the Brush Company—the receiver was taken from the bottom of the furnace, and the contents having been cooled and . broken up, those gentlemen learned In tbe I science of metals proceeded to examine their ! frap-ments microscopically. The general opinion seemed favourable, and one well- !•-■ - n professor T»hom I questioned upon ll •••■-suits of the demonstration remarked: "'! he product is undoubtedly steel of good quality, and the Galbraith furnace is without doubt able to do all that Is claimed for it. The only point that remains to be decided is whether this system can compete on a commercial basis with other systems designed to treat similar classes of ore." The Galbraith Syndicate state that they | can reduce Iron sand to steel for :.„/ a ton, and If that Is so they can certainly com- j pete with any rival process in operation to- j dny. experimentally or otherwise. At pre- I sent, however, the proof that iron sand can I he transformed into steel at that fiirure : rests on calculations made presumably on the basis of experiments similar to the one at Loughborough, and. as we all know, j tests on a commercial scale are apt to upset the eonclnsions arrived at as the result of experiments on a small scale. Still, there Is every reason to hope that in the Gal- j bralth electric-thermic process there has at length b r »n found what so many people! have been seeking these many year 3. name- j ly. a aiiaple. effective, and economical pro-

cess for utilising the vast i™,, """"" sources of the colony. That »W !su,a **•-■ Company have in a measure ili?** themselves with the process may Sif?l as evidence that there are » w i * ta *tu , of a commercial future p,-?*«. eleotilc furnace. cvm If that iuveitt 5 " 1 * | not destined to make New ZeSr? it | pendent of outside supplies in lof steel and iron. "^fff